Hundreds Of NYC's Bridges Are Crumbling, Report Shows

NEW YORK — Everyone from taxi drivers to truckers relies on New York City's bridges to get around. But hundreds of them are crumbling, and all of them need billions of dollars in repairs, a new infrastructure report shows.

The American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, published its annual bridge report Monday. The group ranked New York 13th-worst in the nation for the percentage of bridges that are "structurally deficient," meaning one of their "key elements" is in poor condition or worse.

Some 638, or about 7 percent, of the 9,065 bridges in New York City's 13 congressional districts are structurally deficient, the report shows. That includes the Brooklyn Bridge and the Throgs Neck Bridge, two of the Big Apple's most notable and heavily traveled crossings.

Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that every single one of the bridges in those districts needs repairs, and fixing all of them would cost a combined $40 billion, according to the report.

The figures include bridges throughout the 3rd and 16th congressional districts, which also cover parts of Long Island and Westchester County, respectively.

The 2019 bridge report found there are more than 47,000 bridges rated “structurally deficient” and in urgent need of repairs. Americans cross these bridges — which were built an average of 62 years ago — 178 million times a day.

“If placed end-to-end, they would stretch nearly 1,100 miles — the distance between Chicago and Houston,” the report stated.

While that number may sound like a lot, the total number of structurally deficient bridges has fallen by about 1 percentage point since 2014 to 7.6 percent. And it would take decades to repair them all.

“At this rate, it would take over 80 years to make the significant repairs needed on these structures,” the report stated.

In addition to the Brooklyn Bridge, some of the notable bridges deemed structurally deficient include:

• Memorial Bridge connecting Washington, D.C. with Arlington, Virginia
• San Mateo-Hayward bridge crossing California’s San Francisco Bay – the longest bridge in the state.
• Robert S. Maestri Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana
• Albemarle Sound Bridge and the Lindsay C. Warren Bridge crossing the Alligator River in North Carolina
• Florida’s Pensacola Bay Bridge
• Vicksburg Bridge in Mississippi
• Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge in Washington state

Rhode Island had the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges at 23 percent. West Virginia, Iowa, South Dakota and Pennsylvania rounded out the top five.

According to the Federal Highway Administration’s website, the definition of structurally deficient was changed in 2018. The new definition limits the classification to bridges where one key structural element, such as the deck, superstructure, substructure or culverts, was rated in poor or worse condition. All of the data above, including those for previous years, uses the new definition.

Dr. Alison Premo Black, the organization’s chief economist who conducted the analysis, called the report “no April Fool’s joke.”

“America’s bridge network is outdated, underfunded and in urgent need of modernization,” said Black. “State and local government just haven’t been given the necessary resources to get the job done.”

The Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group encourages strong federal investment in transportation infrastructure.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.